03 09AU The Family of Blood
by NewDrWhoFan
Summary: My take on "The Family of Blood" with Rose... 10Rose.
1. The Best Offense Is Run

_The Series 3 AU with Rose continues! This is a sequel to my stories from "The Girl in the Stalking Spaceship", to "Doomsday Averted", all the way through the AU Series 3 up until "Human Nature"._

_Beta'd by **maven13** and **Anjirika.**_

_Disclaimer: Surprise, surprise, I don't own Doctor Who. Nor do I get anything from writing these stories - except wonderful, constructive reviews! Wink, wink; nudge, nudge ;)_

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**Chapter 1 - The Best Offense Is "Run"**

Jenny pressed the gun harder to Rose's head. "Make your decision, Mr. Smith," she ordered.

John could hardly breathe. All he wanted was to get Rose away to safety. Forget about the insanity and make sure she was safe. They could figure out what was going on later.

Far from here.

"Take me," John begged, taking half a step towards Baines. "Let her go and you can have me." Anything to keep her safe. "Kill me, if you must have blood."

Little Lucy laughed, a bubbly, childish laugh that would have fit her appearance in other circumstances. "That's still no use," she said.

"Perhaps," Baines mused, "if the human heart breaks, the Time Lord will emerge."

Suddenly, at the words "Time Lord", John felt a sort of... power. Images, like those from his dreams, filled his mind. Then it was gone almost as soon as it had started.

But the Family seemed affected as well. "It's him!" Baines shouted with a hungry light in his eyes.

Lucy pointed off to the side of the room. "The boy!" she exclaimed.

But whatever the source of the disturbance, Rose was able to use it to slip away from Jenny, stealing her gun in the process. "Drop the gun, or I will shoot," Rose told them, aiming at Baines who quickly shifted his gun towards her and away from John.

"Oh, the maid is _full_ of fire!" the boy jeered.

"Careful, Son of Mine," Mr. Clarke warned, eyeing Rose cautiously. "This is all for you, so that you can live forever."

Rose stepped back towards John. "I said, drop it!" she told Baines.

Baines shifted his gaze back to John. John couldn't guess what he was thinking, but Baines lowered his gun.

"Doctor, get everyone out," Rose said, still holding the Family at gunpoint.

John looked at her, but was too preoccupied with her insistence on calling him "Doctor" to follow her instructions.

"John, I mean you!" She corrected herself exasperatedly. "Get everyone away from here."

John knew he was entirely out of his depth with whatever this situation was. But he still didn't want to leave her side. "I can't leave you, Rose," he said.

"You've got students out here, yeah?" Rose asked. John had seen several in the hall. "You've got a responsibility to them, to get 'em back to the school. Now, go!"

John nodded, knowing she was right. "Everybody out, now!" he called to the room at large. "Be careful, Rose," he added before turning and heading for the door. It sounded to his ears just as woefully inadequate as he himself felt in that moment.

Most of the villagers were already through the doors by the time John got there. They were quickly clearing the street, but some were heading into the village rather than away from it.

"Not the village," John called. Something told him that would be just as dangerous as staying in the hall. He grabbed the sleeve of the nearest villager he recognized. "Mr. Hicks," he instructed, "go through the village. Get everyone out, head for the woods."

The man nodded and ran off.

John turned back to the hall and noticed Timothy Latimer standing nearby, staring at him. "Latimer, get back to the school," John told him. "Tell the headmaster -"

But even as John's hand reached out towards the boy, Tim backed quickly away. "Don't touch me!" Tim shouted, eyes wide in fear. "You're as bad as them!" Then he turned and ran off towards the woods.

John stood still, shocked, as he recalled images of death and destruction from the Doctor's adventures. It was almost as if Tim had thrown the pictures at his mind, and for some reason, they filled John with guilt.

He came quickly back to himself when he heard a shout from the hall. "Get the gun!"

A moment later, Rose came running out of the doors. "Why're you still here?" she demanded, but before he could answer she had taken his hand and was pulling him off into the woods, running back towards the school.

* * *

They hardly spoke a word as they ran through the woods and that was just fine with Rose. John was with her, and they were heading back to the school and his watch. As soon as they opened it he'd be the Doctor again, and they'd be able to figure out what to do about the Family.

Chivalrously offering his life for hers was all well and good, but John only had the one, as far as Rose knew.

As they entered the school, Rose made to head up the stairs to John's rooms, but John pulled away. He picked up the class bell and started ringing it, shouting, "Take arms! Take arms!"

"John?" Rose asked warningly. "What're you doin'? We need to get your watch."

John looked away from her, obstinately ringing the bell.

One of the boys ran up to him. Rose recognized him as Hutchinson. "I say sir, what's the matter?" the student asked.

"Enemy at the door, Hutchinson," John told him gravely. "Enemy at the door. Take arms!"

"John?" Rose asked again, as Hutchinson ran off. "They're not after the school, they're after you," she told him, as he continued ringing the bell. Now was really not the time for him to start ignoring her, she thought. "And you can't fight them, unless you're the Doctor."

"Maybe one man can't fight them," he answered her, lowering the bell for a moment to glance in her direction. "But this school teaches us to stand together." He turned away and continued the alarm. "Take arms! Take arms!"

"Fine" Rose ground out. She left him there, and raced up the staircase alone. He could stay there and play John Smith. She was going to get that watch.

Unfortunately, when she finally made it to his rooms and ran to the mantelpiece, the watch was gone. "No, no, no!" Rose said to herself as she began shifting papers and books to look for it. It had been right there every time she had looked for it before. He shouldn't have moved it. That's what the perception filter was for, wasn't it? So he'd keep it safe and not open it?

Maybe he'd taken it with him, Rose thought, after searching every level surface in the room. If he was supposed to keep it safe, maybe he hadn't wanted to leave it while he was in town. She ran back down the corridor. But why hadn't he pulled out the watch when she'd first mentioned it at the dance, she wondered. Maybe he was just too confused...

She found him, not far from the entrance where she had left him. He was giving directions to the boys amidst sandbags and guns and ammunition. When he noticed her, he directed her back out of the room. "Rose, it's not safe. Wait in my rooms -"

"Where's the watch, John?" she interrupted, trying to keep her voice calm to keep her own panic at bay. The Family were here, they needed the Doctor back, now.

John gripped her arms and sighed, closing his eyes briefly. "There's no time for this, Rose," he said. He looked urgently at her. "Mr. Philips has already been murdered and they're preparing to advance on the school."

"I'm sorry," Rose said, and she meant it. "But that's why we need the watch," she insisted. "Have you got it? 'Cause if you don't, we need to get outta here and back to the TARDIS. Scan for alien tech or somethin'."

"I need," John corrected her, "to stay here with my students. And you need to stay in the safety of the school. This is a defensible position -"

"Defensible?" Rose said, looking around at the students. "They're just boys -" she tried to tell him, but John was in full schoolteacher mode, more than she'd ever seen him.

"They are cadets, Rose," he told her, "trained to defend the King and all his properties."

Couldn't he see he was deluding himself, Rose thought. "They're just scared boys," she repeated. "They can't win, and they shouldn't have to fight this battle. The Doctor wouldn't -"

"I am Not. That. Man!" John shouted at her.

He seemed just as shocked as Rose at his outburst, and stepped back from her, breathing heavily. Rose wondered what it was that made him so vehement. Was it as simple as clinging to what he thought was the truth? Or did he really not want to become the Doctor as he had come to know him?

"I must do my duty," he said, quietly. "I don't have the luxury of living in a dream world."

He didn't know how wrong he was, Rose thought. He was about to return to the fight, when Rose asked, "Right then, tell me 'bout Nottingham."

"Sorry?" he asked, turning back to her, confusion clear in his face.

Rose hated to do this, but she couldn't see any other way to convince him, not as long as he had the John Smith persona to hide behind. "'S where you said we grew up, so tell me about it," she insisted.

She could tell she had caught him well off his guard. He answered hesitantly. "Well, it lies on the River Leen, its southern boundary following the course of the River Trent which flows from Stoke to the Humber."

That's original, she thought. "Where'd we live?" Rose asked, prompting him further.

"Broadmoor Street, adjacent to Hotley Terrace in the district of Radford Parade," John rattled off.

She shook her head. "You sound like an encyclopedia," she told him. "Where'd you play as a kid, 'fore I showed up? All those secret little places that aren't in any atlases or history books? Rememember all those wonderful little moments from your childhood that only _you_ would know?" She had to break through. Show him that it was just a facade. "Tell me, John," she asked, when he failed to answer. "Try and tell me."

"There was... the Arboretum," he stuttered, "and, and..." Rose watched as his face fell, and she could see he had come up empty. Abruptly he stepped towards her, obviously hurt by her implications. "How can you think that I'm not real?" he asked quietly but insistently. "When I kissed you, was that a lie?"

"No," Rose answered. And that was what was breaking her heart.

"But this Doctor," John continued, "he sounds like some... some romantic lost prince. Would you rather that?" he asked her desperately. "Am I not enough?"

**"**But you are him," Rose whispered, wishing he could just see it. Here he was, asking her to love him for himself, but that was all she was doing to begin with.

He looked at her, his face unreadable, but then said, "I've got to go," and turned away.

"Those boys out there - they're children," Rose called, and he stopped, listening with his back towards her. She had to stop him somehow, Rose realized, even if it meant playing along with his stubborn delusion. "_John Smith _wouldn't want them to fight, never mind the Doctor," she said, forcefully. "The John Smith I was gettin' to know again? He knows it's wrong, doesn't he?" she demanded.

He turned and stepped towards her then, but halted as the headmaster called for him. "What choice to I have?" he asked, brokenly. He reached for her, kissing her quickly but desperately before moving off to head back to the defense.

Rose watched him go, torn as to what she should try next. John didn't have a choice. His programming told him his duty lay with the school. And what could she do? She couldn't very well overpower him and drag him back to the TARDIS. And if she left him here alone, what would that accomplish? She didn't know that she could run any kind of scan, not with the TARDIS shut down and unable to help her. She had been hoping that seeing the ship would help snap John out of his fantasy...

Rose covered her ears as gunfire echoed through the school, and her mind was made up. She ran towards the sound, determined at least to try and keep John alive through this mess. If they could keep the Family at bay, maybe they could still make it to the TARDIS later.

But before she had even reached him, she heard his voice, ordering the retreat.

Boys streamed by her and then John himself appeared. "I'll not see this happen. Not anymore," he said, apologetically. "They've killed the headmaster."

She could see the guilt plainly in his face as she reached for his hand. "Let's get the boys out," she told him.

He nodded and gripped her hand tightly as they moved back through the school, enforcing the evacuation.

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_To be continued._


	2. Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

_Beta'd by** maven13 **and **Anjirika**, and by **Kathryn Shadow**, via review ;)_

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**Chapter 2 - Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are**

Once the school had been evacuated, Rose's one thought was to get John to the TARDIS. She led him through the woods, just skirting the school grounds, around to the western side. If the road was clear when they got to it, they might be able to run. If not, it would mean they'd have to stick to the woods for the whole three miles to where the TARDIS was hidden. Not too bad for her, but John had left his coat at the dance and she'd already seen him starting to shiver. That, and they'd be dodging body-snatching aliens and living scarecrows all the way.

A regular walk in the park, she thought to herself with a good dose of false cheer.

However, they hadn't even reached the road before Rose heard a sing-song kind of voice calling, "Doctor! Doctor!"

She motioned for John to be quiet and follow her, and they crept to the edge of the tree line. The Family were gathered just outside the school, standing around the TARDIS. "Oh, no," Rose breathed, her last bit of hope threatening to desert her.

The Family were taunting the Doctor, calling out into the night. "Come home! Come and claim your prize," one of them shouted.

Rose closed her eyes, desperately trying to think. She had lost the watch, and now she had lost the TARDIS. What did she have? What could she use? She had left the sonic screwdriver and psychic paper in her room, but it didn't seem like either would be of much use at the moment. She had John...

She glanced over at him and was surprised to see him wide-eyed and pale. He was staring at the TARDIS. "You recognize her, don't you?" she asked softly, hoping, praying that she was right.

He shook his head weakly. "Never seen it in my life," he denied but Rose could see he was lying.

This still might work, Rose thought, her faint hope quickly growing into excitement. If she could break through John Smith, maybe enough of the Doctor would be there to help her figure this out. "That's the TARDIS," Rose said, watching closely for his reaction to the name. "The Doctor's blue box? His magic carpet?" she prompted, mentally hacking away at his facade. "You drew her; you wrote about her in your journal."

"I'm not-" John began, his voice breaking, "I'm John Smith. That's all I want to be," he said, looking pleadingly at Rose. "_John Smith_, with his life, and his job... and his love." He reached for her hands, and Rose's heart sank at what she was doing to him. If he hadn't been all that stood between her and the Doctor, she would have been first in line to help soothe his conflicted mind. "Why can't I be John Smith?" he asked, as if her permission were all he needed. "Isn't he a good man?"

"Yeah, you are," Rose told him with conviction, "but so's the Doctor."

"Why can't I stay?" he begged.

"'Cause we need him," she answered, firmly. It just wasn't possible for her to give in to his pleas. The world, the universe needed the Doctor. And so did she.

"So what am I, then?" he asked. "Nothing?" He let her hands go and stood back from her before she could reply. "I'm just a story," he said dejectedly, and turned and ran deeper into the woods.

"John!" Rose called as loudly as she dared, and followed after him. Did he really have to make this more difficult than it already was?

* * *

John wasn't sure where he was running. He just knew he had to get away from Rose, or rather from whatever it was she was trying to do to him. However, when Timothy Latimer suddenly appeared out of the darkness, he stopped in his tracks, not ten paces from where he had left Rose. "Latimer? What are you doing out here?" he asked. "You should be with the other boys -"

At that moment, Rose ran up beside him. "John, I'm sorry, I -" she began but cut herself off upon seeing Tim. "What's goin' on?"

"You need to follow me, sir," Tim said simply, looking straight at John. "I know where you'll be safe, and I have something for you." Something had changed in the boy's face since John had last seen him in the village.

"What is it?" Rose asked. "What have you got for -"

"Not here. Further from them," Tim said, looking back at the school. Without another word, he turned and headed off through the woods to the north.

John took Rose's hand, almost without thinking, and followed after the boy. Tim set a good pace through the trees and John had no qualms about it. It helped to fight off the evening's chill that was slowly seeping into John's bones. It also kept conversation to a minimum and gave him enough to think about, climbing over fallen logs and through underbrush. Enough that he didn't have to think about the Doctor.

After a few minutes, Tim had led them to a small cottage.

"Whose house is this?" Rose asked, looking over the structure.

"I think it's no one's," Tim said, opening the unlocked front door. He led the way inside. "Hello?" Tim called, but there was no response from within the darkened house. "We should be safe here," he told them, leading them into the small kitchen.

"Latimer," John said, tired of the boy's secrecy and hints, "who lives here? How do you know we'll be safe?" He was glad to be out of the night air, but he still wanted answers.

"It's the Cartwrights' house, sir," he answered, a little sadly, John thought. "That little girl at the hall, she's Lucy Cartwright. I guessed that if she came home, and if her parents tried to stop her, then they'd be vanished like Mr. Greebe at the dance."

John looked around at the room. The table was set for tea but the meal was untouched, hours old.

"You said you had somethin' for Mr. Smith," Rose said a little impatiently to Tim. "What is it?"

Tim reached into his pocket and pulled out John's watch. John instinctively stepped towards it but then drew back, tripping against and falling into one of the kitchen chairs. There was a sort of pull from the watch now and it made him feel like a marionette.

"_You_ had it?" Rose asked Tim, accusingly. "Why'd you take it?"

"I didn't mean to, not really," Tim told her. "But it wanted to be hidden. I think it knew that the Family were coming. They were looking all over the school." He looked at John. "You saw Jeremy Baines was one of them, sir. I think he has been for a few days. I had to hide the watch or he'd have found it in your rooms."

"I don't want it," John told him, but he couldn't take his eyes off of it. That watch... something was alive and calling to him.

Everything was true, John realized mournfully. And not just the fantastical adventures he'd shared with Rose. If the Family were real then so were other evils ten times worse. He had seen the blue box, the Doctor's only means of escape from the destruction he left behind him, seen it with his own eyes. And here was the watch, the Doctor himself, ready to annihilate the life of John Smith, simple human.

"I wish you'd had this at the dance," Rose lamented to Tim. "Or did you? You were there, weren't you? Did you have it then?"

John's disappointment only increased. Even Rose, his light and his hope, could only think about how to change him into the Doctor.

"It was waiting," Tim answered her. "And... " he looked apologetically at John, "I was scared of the Doctor."

"You should be," John said quietly. Rose looked sharply at him, but he kept his eyes focused on the watch.

"I've seen him," Tim said. "He's... like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun."

Tim's words merged with snippets of John's dreams and a voice that seemed to come from the watch. It was too much for John. "Stop it," he told Tim, his voice barely above a whisper.

But Tim went on. "He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and he can see the turn of the universe."

John could see it, could feel it, worlds and stars dying and being born in a constant but ever changing cycle. "Stop!" he ordered, climbing to his feet and backing away further. He didn't want it. He didn't want it to be true. "I said stop it," he said, his throat constricting.

"And he's wonderful," Tim added, sounding awed.

John finally looked up at that, surprised to see no hint of condemnation in the boy's face. How could he see the Doctor and not despise him?

John then looked at Rose and caught his breath at the look of deep admiration and obvious love she had for him.

No, he corrected himself sadly, only for the Doctor.

Tim took a step closer to John. "It told me to find you," Tim said, holding the watch out to him. "It wants to be held."

John took yet another step back. He fisted his hands at his sides, resolute.

"Hold it, John," Rose coaxed.

He shook his head. "I won't."

"Please, just hold it," she begged. John thought she was trying to sound sympathetic, but he couldn't miss the eagerness in her face.

Just then the house shook. Rose moved to the window and pulled back the curtains. Through the window, John could see glimpses of something like meteors, or green fire, falling from the sky. Dishes rattled on the table and on the kitchen shelves with each of the nearer impacts. "They're attackin' the village," Rose reported, biting her lip as she stared out the window.

John looked back to the watch in Tim's hand. Almost without John's permission, his legs moved him closer and his hand hovered above the watch.

"Closer," it seemed to call to him. "Closer."

"Can you hear it?" Tim asked, looking to John.

John felt as though he were in a dream. "I think he's asleep," he answered. "Waiting to awaken." No, he wasn't in a dream, he _was_ the dream.

"Why did he speak to me?" Tim asked, as John's fingers closed around the watch.

"Oh, low-level telepathic field," John answered, dismissively. "You were born with it. Just an extra synaptic engram causing -" John gasped, holding the watch in both hands. That wasn't him, that had to be the Doctor. He looked to Rose. "Is that how he talks?" he asked.

"That's him!" She answered, spinning towards him, delighted. "All you have to do is open it and he's back," she told him, encouragingly.

"And I die," John told her and her face fell. "Was that your job all along?" he asked, dropping his hands back to his sides. "Just to keep me alive until the time came to execute me?"

"No, I -" she began but John cut her off.

"Did you think it was all some kind of joke?" he demanded angrily. "How funny that John Smith thinks he's in love." His voice broke even as he said the words. He imagined her laughing at him behind his back, patronizingly entertaining his advances, knowing all the while that he was nothing more than a place-holder. An invention. "What a fool you must have -"

"Stop it!" Rose shouted and he realized she was crying.

They stood, staring at each other for a long moment. He didn't want to believe what he'd said about her but how could she have been genuine? If she knew all along that he was just a story, that he would become the Doctor again when his time was up... of course, she had never actually said that she returned his feelings.

"It wasn't a joke," Rose calmly told him. "You aren't a joke. The Doctor said John Smith was gonna be just a simple fiction and maybe that's most of what you know. But I've seen so much more in you."

She stepped forward hesitantly and reached for the hand that wasn't holding the watch. John let her take it.

"If you were just a story," she went on with a hint of a smile, "you'd be just this stuffy history teacher and you never would've looked twice at a maid."

Rose brushed her free hand over the fingers John had clenched around the watch.

John was nearly overcome by the images that suddenly flooded his mind. His feelings, hopes, and dreams of Rose were extrapolated through time, through a lifetime with her. But there was a simmering, warring force, the Doctor's own dreams, all of her and all making John's feeble wishes pale in comparison.

John struggled to bring himself back to the present, forcing the images away.

Rose seemed to be completely unaffected as she went on. "Everythin' that made you step outside of convention... that fallin' piano... remember what you said about 'run'?" she asked. "That all came from the Doctor."

She lifted up his hand with the watch between them and John fought to remain focused on her.

"I don't think the Doctor's really in the watch," she said, looking him in the eyes with conviction. "I think he's you. The soul, or the mind, or whatever makes a person a person, that's in you," she told him. "But it's like you're drugged, or you've got amnesia and you just can't remember the truth." She smiled. "You open that watch and you won't die," she insisted. "You'll just be more yourself."

John thought about how he had felt before he had touched the watch. How alive he had felt that afternoon in the village when he had saved a mother and baby using only a cricket ball. How right it had felt to run away with Rose, hand in hand. How perfect life had seemed to be when he had held her and kissed her, like he was finally awakening from a lifelong dream, or maybe touching a dream.

But Rose couldn't realize what nightmares awaited if he let the sleeping Doctor awaken.

The house rocked with more explosions. "It's getting closer," Tim said from the window, turning to John with a worried expression.

John was surprised to realize the boy was still there. He looked past Rose and Tim, watching the green lightning through the window. Rose wasn't the only one who wanted the Doctor. The Family... the Family...

"They don't want me," John whispered. He took half a step away from Rose. "I should have thought of it before: I can give them this!" He held up the watch, triumphant in his discovery. "Just the watch, then they can leave and I can stay as I am!" He wouldn't have to die. He could rid himself of the Family and the Doctor in one simple move.

"You can't!" Rose argued, obviously horrified at the idea.

But John was convinced it would work. It had to. "If they want the Doctor, they can have him," he told her.

"I won't let you," Rose told him, fiercely, and John dropped the watch back to his side.

His heart sank as her bravery showed up his cowardice. But his plan did make sense, he told himself. He tried, weakly, to explain. "If they get what they want, then - then -" It must have come from the watch, John thought, but he could suddenly see the Family, breeding and conquering, living forever.

"Then it all ends in destruction," Tim finished for him. "I've seen that, too. War across the stars."

* * *

Rose felt tears threatening again as she watched the broken man before her slump back into his chair. She could just take the watch from John and open it herself but something held her back. Somehow it just didn't seem right. What she had said about seeing the Doctor in him was true. She wanted him to _choose_ to be the Doctor. She wasn't about to let him go and give the watch away, but still...

She turned to Tim. "Could you give us a minute?" she asked. "Alone?"

Tim nodded and left the room.

Rose pulled up a chair beside John and sat, smoothing his hair, trying to give him some measure of consolation. "I'm really sorry," she told him. "I can't imagine what this is like for you."

"I can see," he said quietly, looking at the watch he now held in his lap. "I can see it all. Everything we lose if I change."

We, he said. Everything we lose. Everything we could share. And that was what probably hurt Rose the most. He wanted a life with her. A kind of life she would never have with the Doctor. "Can I see?" she asked, just as quietly. She wasn't exactly sure she wanted to. She worked so hard at telling herself she didn't want anything like that with the Doctor. It might be easier not to know...

John held the watch out to her and she cautiously reached out a hand towards it. Relief filled her when she touched the watch and couldn't see anything. "Guess it doesn't work for me," she said.

But then John covered her hand with his own.

There was a wedding, their wedding, surrounded by dozens of smiling people in a small chapel. Everyone was cheering them, oblivious to the truck rumbling down the street filled with soldiers on their way to war.

Children came. John supported them, Rose took care of them at home. The world moved on around their growing family but they couldn't be bothered by it. John never read the newspaper, hardly watched the television when it came along. As long as they stayed apart from all that, the children would be safe. Rose would be safe.

On and on it went, a happy life filled with love and family, but oblivious to the pain and suffering in the world around it. Even on his deathbed, John's one thought was, "They're all safe, aren't they?"

It was full, but at the same time, empty. It was just what Rose had told her Mum she couldn't do anymore. A normal life. The Doctor had shown her something so much better and it didn't have to be in a TARDIS. If somewhere in his vision John had opened his eyes and tried to help, if life had been about more than keeping their family safe, if John and Rose and their children could have gone out into the world and learned and shared and met people and taken risks and changed things for the better... maybe that life would have been tempting.

Even as she thought these things, a new vision filled her mind. Another wedding, but on another world. No, "Until death do us part," but whispers of "Forever."

Children came; children that amazed them by their very existence. They raised them together, amidst the wonders of the universe.

The pain and darkness sometimes touched their lives, as it always had, but they pressed forward together, never giving in to it.

Realization hit Rose with a shock and she jerked her hand away from the watch. Those couldn't be John's dreams she was looking at any longer. Embarrassment filled her at the thought that her own dreams of life with the Doctor must somehow have bled through. She had never given them such detail but that must be the watch at work. Rose looked back at John, wondering if he had seen it, praying the Doctor wouldn't remember if he had.

But John didn't mention it. He looked at her with tears in his eyes and said, "If I become the Doctor, I lose you."

Rose shook her head. "No, you won't," she insisted, reaching for his hands but careful not to touch the watch again. "I promised the Doctor forever -"

"But I will," John told her, his voice full of conviction. "You're human. You can only give him so long. But the Doctor lives forever."

Rose sat back slightly, a lump forming in her throat as John confronted her with the emptiness of her own words and with her own - and perhaps the Doctor's - fears.

"If I change," he went on, "maybe I could save the world, but I'll still lose you."

Rose's heart skipped a beat and she was suddenly back in the cabinet room at Ten Downing Street. The Doctor had said almost those exact words to her then but she never imagined it went deep enough to stay with him now, when he was a regeneration apart, not to mention a different species.

She leaned forward, and kissed him. He cradled her head, returning the kiss desperately.

Rose eventually put a hand to his chest and gently broke the kiss. "But you've gotta do it," she said at last, echoing her own conviction from that long-ago adventure. "It's your decision, but people are dyin' and they need help. They need the Doctor. But if you're not gonna do anything about the Family, then I will." She didn't know what she'd do but she couldn't do nothing. She just wasn't that kind of person anymore.

He stared at her then looked back down at the watch. Rose wished she could know what he was thinking, what else she could say to convince him. After a long moment of silence punctuated only by the continuing bombardment outside, he pulled her back to himself, kissing her hair. "I love you," he murmured. Words stuck in Rose's throat as she clung to him, pondering her reply. It would be so true and yet such a lie to say the same to him.

He opened the watch and screamed.

* * *

_To be continued._


	3. Time Lord Victorious

_Beta'd by **Anjirika** and** maven13**. What would I do without y'all?_

* * *

**Chapter 3 - Time Lord Victorious**

This time, it even looked like he was regenerating.

A golden light - energy - cloud - thing poured from the watch, surrounding John as he screamed and writhed. Rose did her best to guide him gently to the floor when he fell off of his chair but she couldn't hold him still.

Tim appeared at her side and she shouted over John's screams, "Get his other arm, will ya?"

Rose wasn't sure how long they held him. Every second seemed to stretch into minutes but finally he stilled. She expected him to pass out again, like after he had used the Chameleon Arch, but instead he sat straight up, gasping for air.

He blinked, looked at her and smiled. "Rose!" he exclaimed, and with that, she was in his arms.

He pressed her to his chest, and she could hear his heartbeat. She raised her hand to the right side of his chest and could feel the second heart. He was back. Her Doctor was back! She snaked both her arms around his waist to pull him closer. "I missed you," she mumbled into his shirt. It was wet, she realized, from her own tears.

"Rose," he said, more gently. Then she felt him working his jaw and pulled away to see what was wrong. He was licking his teeth or something and his face was growing more and more concerned.

"What's the matter?" she asked, when a look of horror filled his eyes.

"Is that..." he began, then stuck his tongue out like he was about to gag. "Is that pear?" he asked, and proceeded to wipe his tongue on the sleeve of his suit jacket.

Rose bit her lip, remembering her little revenge from over a week ago. She had repented once he had apologized, but she had been distracted by his journal and realized she must have left the pears with his breakfast.

"I told you," the Doctor went on, exasperated, "Item number five, I think it was? No. Pears. How could you let me eat pears?"

Despite his indignation, Rose could only think of one thing: it seemed the Doctor didn't remember being John Smith. Rose wasn't sure in that precise moment how she felt about that. She knew there was a good measure of relief that she might not have to explain some of the things she had said to John or things she might have shown him, like with the watch. And there was the whole proposal, which fortunately she doubted he'd ever mention even if he did remember - not in two centuries, let alone two weeks. But it also meant two and a half months that she couldn't look back on with him, things she couldn't ask him...

Regardless, at present he was still babbling on about pears and Time Lord senses and, "Has anyone got a banana to get this awful taste out of my mouth?"

Tim got up to look through the kitchen cupboards but Rose turned the Doctor's face towards her and with a relieved huff of a laugh kissed him.

It was just a brief kiss but it shut him up quite nicely. Rose mustered up her courage and spoke into the momentary silence. "I love you, y'know," she told him quietly while looking intently at his shoulder. Regardless of all the times John had said it, the Doctor had told her himself before he first changed. And even if he never planned on saying it again, he did have a right to know...

"Quite right, too," he said, gently.

She looked back up at him and his smile melted her heart.

He kissed her again then pressed their foreheads together. "It's over, Rose," he said. "I'm back."

Rose sighed. "Not quite over," she said sadly, and as if to emphasize her words, another round of explosions rocked the cottage. She sat back from him and explained quickly, rather than asking what he remembered. "We had to open the watch early 'cause the Family found us. They took human bodies and they were killin' even more people and now they've got the TARDIS - it's at the school - and they're bombin' the village with their ship. And this is Latimer," she added, indicating the boy who was now standing next to them, holding a small bunch of bananas. "What's your first name?" she asked.

"Tim, miss," he answered. "I found these, sir," he added, offering the bananas to the Doctor.

* * *

After making quick work of all three bananas, drinking the entire pot of cold tea, and instructing Tim to wait in the cottage until it was safe, the Doctor struck out towards the school with Rose.

It wasn't exactly lying, he told himself. He had kept quiet while Rose explained all that had been going on and had allowed her to re-introduce Tim. He hadn't actually said that he didn't remember. She was just assuming he didn't.

And he was allowing her to assume.

But it wasn't as though he intended to let it continue indefinitely. It was just until he could figure out what to do about... everything. Now simply wasn't the time to go into it. Not with power-hungry, telepathic maniacs on the loose in 1913 Britain.

He had two weeks, after all.

As they came within sight of the school, the Doctor scanned the scene. There was no sign of the Family; only their scarecrow soldiers were left guarding the TARDIS. The Family must all have been on board their ship.

"Ready?" he asked Rose quietly, before they crossed the tree line.

She nodded. "Yeah, let's do it."

The Doctor took the watch from his jacket pocket and ran out of the trees towards the TARDIS. "Here!" he called, holding the watch out in front of him. "I've got the Doctor!"

A beat later, Rose started running after him. "John, no, you can't!" she screamed, quite convincingly.

"I've got the Doctor!" he told the scarecrows again. "Call off the attack!"

The Doctor noted with satisfaction that the bombardment immediately ceased and as they neared the straw soldiers he could hear the faint whine of the ship's engines approaching.

* * *

It ended up being entirely too simple to take care of the Family, Rose thought, after all they'd been through in the past few months to avoid them. While she had pleaded with "John" not to give up the watch, the Doctor had done a little "ventriloquism of the nose", as he'd called it, tricking the Family into thinking the Time Lord was still trapped inside the device. From the moment they set foot on the Family's ship, even as the Doctor bargained with the Family to leave, he very carefully accidentally tripped against several vital control panels, initiating quite a catastrophic energy feedback.

As they ran from the soon-to-be-exploding ship, Rose reveled in the fact that she was the one being pulled by the Doctor instead of her dragging John along behind her. He was really, truly back.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the Family had finally exited the ship as well. They were still a good distance behind and dangerously close to the ship when the Doctor said, "Three, two, one!" He pulled her to the ground, cradling her close to himself just as the ship went up.

The Doctor quickly rolled to his feet once the blast had passed. He helped Rose up and she looked around at their surroundings. The scarecrows had all collapsed and the Family lay still, illuminated by their burning ship.

"C'mon," the Doctor said, tugging Rose's hand and heading off back towards the TARDIS.

Rose used her key, since John Smith hadn't been in the habit of carrying his around with him. As soon as they were safe in the console room with the doors closed, the Doctor activated the scanner.

"Rose," he told her, stepping aside for her to approach the screen. "I need you to stay and keep an eye on them," he said.

The Family were still lying on the ground, but they seemed to be coming around. "'Kay, no problem," she agreed."

"I'll be right back," he said, then kissed her forehead and ran further into the TARDIS.

Grinning, Rose turned back to the scanner. She thought some kind of "the Doctor's back" dance was quite in order, but managed to refrain. She watched as the evil alien formerly known as Jenny sat up, and Rose felt a wave of anger that melted into sadness at what had happened to the girl. She was just about to call the Doctor when she heard him returning, accompanied by a clanking, scraping kind of sound.

"Still there?" he said, as he re-entered the console room and cast a glance at the scanner. His arms and shoulders were draped in thick chains. "Time to end this," he told her, much more seriously than she had seen him yet that night.

Rose jogged down the ramp ahead of him to open the TARDIS doors. "What're you gonna do?" she asked, letting the Doctor out ahead of her and following him across the grounds.

He didn't answer immediately and she could tell he was clenching his jaw. It wasn't until they reached the Family that he gave her some semblance of an answer and even then it was directed more at the Family themselves than at her. "Unbreakable chains," he said, letting the bulk of his burden fall to the ground. He held up one length of chain as he went on. "Forged in the heart of a dwarf star. Not easy to come by, this," he said, and began to bind each of the Family with the chain. "But it'll keep you out of trouble, and in those bodies, 'til I decide what to do with you."

Rose helped feed the chain to him as he wound it around each of his captives individually and clamped them to it with something like manacles. He wordlessly took the now-empty watch from Baines' grip and slipped it into his pocket. Rose let him have his brooding time as he led the line of prisoners back to the TARDIS. He'd said he still needed to decide their fate, but it didn't seem like it was going to be pretty.

The Doctor didn't say another word. Not when Lucy, then Baines started bargaining. Not when Jenny started threatening. Not even when they entered the TARDIS and all four were hushed and then began gibbering in fear.

He led them to a door Rose hadn't seen before and pushed them all into the dimly lit room. When he had closed the door on them, the Doctor stepped back and leaned against the other side of the corridor.

"What's gonna happen to them?" Rose asked after a moment.

He stared ahead at the door. "They had their chance, and they lost it," he said darkly. "They want to live forever; I might give them just that."

Something twisted inside her when Rose heard the way he said that. It wasn't a new feeling but it was one she suddenly realized she had been ignoring.

No second chances, he'd said, when he had sent that Sycorax to his death using a satsuma. Right after that, too, his six little words had deposed Harriet Jones, just because she'd done what she'd thought was right.

Rose had felt it a few times before his regeneration, too, with the Dalek in Van What's-His-Name's museum, for instance. But he'd backed down then.

Now, the more she thought about it, it seemed that whenever someone challenged him or turned up their noses at an offer he made them, he crushed them.

Rose wasn't sure why she hadn't realized it before but there had been a lot of distractions: regeneration, running for their lives, things like that. But now, it was just the two of them: Rose and the Time Lord victorious, standing over his captives.

Rose narrowed her eyes as another thought occurred to her. Yes, he was like this quite frequently, except... she remembered him actually begging the last Dalek in Old New York...

"Was it the Daleks?" she asked.

The Doctor's head whipped around towards her. "What?" he asked back, completely startled.

"Did you give _them_ a chance? Before the Time War?" she clarified.

"What?" he asked again, pushing off of the wall. All the color had suddenly drained from his face.

Rose steeled herself and explained, somehow certain that she was right. "This you," she said, "you're always goin' on about 'no second chances' for some reason, 'cept when you found the last one of the Daleks in New York. Then you were all, 'I'm not gonna cause a genocide.'"

"I..." he trailed off, leaning back against the wall, "I don't..." he began again, then slid down to sit on the floor.

Rose felt rather terrible, bringing all this up, but if he'd been ignoring it too, it was about time he faced it. She sat beside him, chewing her lip as he looked blankly off into the middle distance.

"I had a chance," he said quietly, "long before the Time War. I was actually ordered to... I could have wiped them out of existence before they were ever a threat. I knew what they would become... but I didn't do it." He paused, evidently remembering. "When the war came, the other Time Lords... it did things to them. And I couldn't..." his voice broke, and Rose took his nearest hand. "At first," he said, his voice clearer after a moment, "I blamed myself. And the Daleks, but I didn't think they were around anymore. And then," he looked at Rose, "You were right about the Dalek Van Statten had captured. My first impulse had been to kill it in cold blood, but you were right. And then, I don't know." He shook his head, looking down at the floor. "I couldn't kill them on the Gamestation and I couldn't stop Dalek Caan."

"'Cause," Rose cautiously ventured when he didn't continue, "you thought it'd be like followin' your orders? And that if it was the right thing now, maybe it was the right thing back then, which would've meant... you were wrong?" She scrunched her face up as she realized how confused that sounded.

But the Doctor looked at her gratefully. "When I think about it, I try," he said, quietly. "I try to do it again, to give people a chance. But most of the time... I'm afraid to."

Rose moved closer to him, laying her head on his shoulder. She tried to tell herself it was to comfort him but it was also to avoid the unsettling helplessness she saw in the Doctor's face. She decided to take a page out of his own book. "How long're they gonna be alright in there?" she asked, nodding her chin towards the door across from them.

The Doctor took a deep breath then answered nonchalantly. "Oh, about infinitely," he said.

"Kay," Rose replied lightly, "then how 'bout we get outta here and get Tim and then we can figure out what to do."

He laughed lightly, evidently recognizing the distraction tactic. He kissed the top of her head then stood and helped Rose to her feet. "Go and pack your things, then we'll meet back here before the army shows up?" he suggested.

"Yeah, good plan," she agreed with a smile.

* * *

The Doctor stepped into John Smith's rooms and closed the door behind him. The school was still deserted, except for Rose who was currently in the vicinity of the servant's quarters.

His first stop was the wardrobe. He changed quickly into his Converses and pinstriped suit, replacing Rose's ring in the jacket's breast pocket. Two weeks, she had told John Smith. Not, "No," but, "Ask again in two weeks." It gave the Doctor a measure of hope that she had said it like that. He expected she thought he never would ask, not as the Doctor, but it left a window open.

There wasn't much else that he needed to take back with him. There were a few period clothes that the TARDIS had provided, but he didn't see himself wearing them again anytime soon.

He did open the desk drawer, however, and pulled out the Journal of Possibilities. He could add a good deal to the book. What had Baines asked him about being human? Whether it had made him better, richer, wiser. He didn't know about any of that but it had made him honest - at least while he had still been human.

All of his dreams for a life with Rose had somehow managed to assert themselves over the life John Smith had tried to show her. It was exhilarating to remember sharing his mind with her like that, the secret treasures of his heart that he didn't even fully admit to himself. It did concern him that she had pulled away so quickly after catching a glimpse of them...

A knock sounded on the door and the Doctor hastily slipped the journal into his jacket pocket. He realized he had been dallying and it wouldn't do to let Rose know that he had been reminiscing. He walked back to the wardrobe as he called, "Come in," then stooped, pretending to be tying his shoelaces.

For just a moment, he thought as Rose opened the door, he had been honest.

* * *

_To be continued. _

_The next chapter'll feature some rather sharp deviations from the original episode, just in case you haven't had enough of that already ;)_

_This point came up in discussions with maven13: yes, the Doctor has responsibilities to meet out justice in the universe, but think about what he did to the Family in the episode. He didn't throw them into the event horizon together or stick them in the same cornfiled. He not only ensured they'd be immortal, but ALONE. Looks pretty sulky, to me._

_The Doctor's mission to destroy the Daleks is from an adventure with the Fourth Doctor, "Genesis of the Daleks". No, I haven't seen the whole thing; I'm still in the middle of "The Keys of Marinus" with the First Doctor. But I did look it up online and watch a scene or two..._


	4. Consequences

___Beta'd by _**____****Anjirika**___._

_Happy birthday, **LadyKate24**!_

_You can thank the **OctoberProject** (search authors) for this update. The only reason I'm able to write is because it's got me glued to my computer, waiting to see the next post and contribute where appropriate..._

_And here we go. This is me, blowing the original episode storyline completely out of the water - the ending, at least._

* * *

**Chapter 4 - Consequences**

Rose closed the TARDIS' doors just as the first police car came into view on the school grounds. The Doctor was already moving around the console as she climbed the ramp and she expertly caught hold of a support strut when the ship shuddered to life with the dematerialization.

"Just a quick little sidestep..." the Doctor said, throwing a couple of levers and spinning a dial in the haphazard way that he always did. The ship rematerialized almost before he had finished speaking.

"You're sure, right?" Rose asked, not yet moving towards the doors.

"'Course I'm sure," he said confidently. "He won't have been waiting more than an hour."

They exited the TARDIS together, and Rose was relieved to discover that the Doctor had been right. They were just outside the cottage, and the door opened before they had reached it. Tim stuck his head out, eyes wide, but he visibly relaxed when he saw who it was.

"I thought I heard something," Tim began, stopping suddenly when he saw what was behind them. "That's... is that..."

"The TARDIS," the Doctor supplied, glancing back over his shoulder at the ship. "And she's quite ready to get moving again, after sitting around for months. What do you say, Timothy?" he asked. "Care to visit the stars? Explore the past? See the future?"

The boy smiled, but then his face grew serious. "But I already have," he said. "Seen the future, I mean. And... I'd better just say goodbye," he told them.

"Why's that?" Rose asked. She couldn't help the disappointment in her voice. She had grown quite attached to Tim in the short time since she had learned the part he had played in saving the Doctor from the Family.

"Because I know what has to be done," Tim said. "It's coming, isn't it?" he asked them both. "The biggest war ever."

Rose thought of all those scared boys at the school trying to fight off the Family. The thought of Tim, of any of them, going off to fight in the war that was to come broke her heart. She had learned enough traveling with the Doctor to know some events were fixed, but still. One boy... "You could still come with us," she offered. "You don't need to fight -"

"I think we do," he said with conviction.

Rose bit her lip, not really able to argue with him.

The Doctor let the matter lie. "It's safe for you to head back to the school, now," he said, nodding his head towards the grounds. "And Tim," he added, stepping towards the boy, "I'd be honored if you'd take this." The Doctor pulled the fob watch from his pocket and handed it to Tim.

Rose was truly surprised. She hadn't yet gotten a chance to ask the Doctor about it, but that watch had had Gallifreyan symbols on it. He might actually have a whole room full of them on the TARDIS for all she knew, but she doubted it. The Doctor was giving Tim one of the few remaining pieces of his home. She wondered if Tim had any notion of what it meant.

The boy took it and held it, then looked up at the Doctor. "I can't hear anything," Tim said, surprise evident in his voice.

"No, it's just a watch now," the Doctor told him. "But keep it with you. For good luck."

Tim smiled again, and Rose moved forward to hug him. "Stay safe," she said, still conflicted about leaving him to such an uncertain fate.

"I should say the same to you," Tim told her, returning the gesture. "I don't think I'll be in nearly as much danger as the two of you."

Rose pulled back from him, worried that he was being prophetic or something. But he was still smiling. "Whaddya mean?" she asked.

"It sort of follows you around, doesn't it?" Tim asked. "I know you don't exactly go looking for it but it's like what happened here with the Family." Rose looked to the Doctor but his face was unreadable. "You've got to move on," Tim continued, "and we've got to stay and deal with the consequences. But it's better this way. We all have a job to do."

After a moment, the Doctor said, "Yes, we do." Then he shook Tim's hand and stepped back towards the TARDIS.

Rose gave Tim a quick kiss on the cheek. "So long," she said, then she turned towards the Doctor and took his proffered hand.

When they reached the ship, the Doctor called back to Tim. "You'll like this bit," he said, then crossed the threshold and closed the doors behind them.

As they entered the Vortex, Rose was reminded of when they had left Charles Dickens. Thinking of that, she dreaded her next question. "Will he be alright?" she asked the Doctor.

To her relief, he smiled. "Yeah," he said. "He'll make it through the war alright." Once the TARDIS was drifting steadily, he came around the console and wrapped her in his arms. She let out a relived sigh at his words as well as the comfort of his physical presence. "We can even go see him again, if you'd like," he offered.

"I'd like that," she said, and hugged him around the waist. She took a breath. "But first," she began.

"The Family," the Doctor finished for her, kissing her hair before stepping back to lean against the console.

Rose let herself fall into the captain's chair. "How long've they got left?" she asked. "We were s'posed to be hidin' for another week and a half..."

"Well," he said, "the chains will keep them alive indefinitely. But apart from that..." the Doctor raised a hand to his neck. "Not long," he said, not quite meeting her eyes. "I actually wouldn't have expected them to last as long as they have," he admitted, resting both hands on the console again. "It might have to do with the life energy of their victims. This is the second set of bodies we've seen them in, and we don't really know how long they'd been on the run before we met them on Villengard."

Rose's jaw dropped as she realized the implications of what he was telling her. "So, you're sayin' that even if they hadn't found us and I'd waited the whole three months and then opened the watch, they'd still be out there huntin' you?"

"Possibly," he said, meekly.

She closed her eyes and dismissed the matter with a shake of her head. What was done was done, and exhaustion was rapidly creeping upon her. "So that still leaves what to do with 'em now," she said. "Have they got some sort of police or somethin' on their planet that'll take them?" she asked, looking back up at the Doctor.

His brow furrowed. "Not as such," he said. Instead of elaborating, he turned to the scanner and began working the console controls. After about half a minute he continued. "We know what time period they're from, since they probably didn't have the vortex manipulator before they got to Villengard," he said.

"Makes sense," Rose agreed from her place on the captain's chair. As animated as the Doctor was becoming, she wasn't about to get back to her feet just to look at the unintelligible symbols on the screen.

"So we could just bring them home," he said, grinning at her over his shoulder.

"Is it safe?" she asked. "I mean, the rest of their people, you said they're not like them?" She couldn't see the wisdom in delivering their captives if they'd also be delivering a Time Lord to a planet full of hungry mayflies.

"Not in the least," he answered, and Rose gaped at him. "Like them, I mean," he said, hands raised. "It's perfectly safe. I've been there before, which, actually, is probably why they were hunting me to begin with."

"And that makes it safe?" Rose asked. He flipped a last switch, then turned to face her completely again. "If they went huntin' after you the last time you visited -"

"It wasn't like that," he interrupted gently and suddenly serious.

Rose gave him a silent, "Then what was it like?" shrug and he continued.

"I was... really tired," he sighed, suddenly withdrawn. He seemed to shake himself and continued. "And it was a few centuries before the time this Family is from. Their people are sort of spiritual-ish, yogi-esque, well... you get the picture."

He didn't elaborate and Rose didn't ask any more, despite her questions. It was a few centuries before the Family, but when was it for him? Was it just before she'd met him, after the Time War? Was it even before that, just being tired from living his long life? The Doctor was watching Rose, and she at last nodded. "Let's try that, then," she said at last.

* * *

The Doctor sent Rose off to bed before setting the coordinates for Tharnadur.

He remembered the last time he had been there. He had been in his seventh form, and had been oh, so tired. Tired of living. Tired of losing. He hadn't known just how tired he would be and just how much he would lose a few centuries down the line, but still. He had thought a vacation was quite in order, a vacation from being a Time Lord. He had just acquired the Chameleon Arch on Gallifrey and was flitting about time and space looking for a nice place to spend his break (he had earth in mind, but he was admittedly nervous and purposefully delaying) when he came upon the Family's home world.

It was probably the most genuinely Eden-like of any world he had visited. Oh, there were plenty of planets with lush vegetation and plentiful fruits and such, but this was different. It was as if the world was made for its people, and they lived in perfect harmony with it and with each other. Animals were peaceful and never hunted. All of the inhabitants' physical needs were met by their environment: food, clothing, shelter. Fruit could be harvested year-round. Single, large-bladed leaves served as a toga-like garment when the mornings or evenings were cool, or when off-worlders were especially prudish; otherwise, the people were comfortable in their naked form. The roots of a large shrub grew into thickly-woven nests, providing natural huts to ward off rain or sun.

It wasn't everyone's idea of paradise, but it was the Tharnadee's.

The slender, translucent humanoids had welcomed him when he had arrived. They had a sort of empathic knowledge of his needs, and he discovered it was an extension of the intense psychic abilities they shared among their own kind. The Tharnadee were primarily interested in why the Doctor was so lost and despairing, but they were happy to teach him about themselves if the knowledge could ease his mind.

He could hardly get his head around their extraordinarily brief life spans, especially considering how he had been bemoaning the supposedly brief lives of so many of his past companions. Human companions, limited to less than a century. But three months... and they were at peace with it.

He wasn't surprised that they had a firm belief in an afterlife.

The Tharnadee had an innate knowledge of the nature of their lives seemingly from birth. They could communicate psychically with their children, and believed that they could commune with their Creator and with those who had gone before them as well. The Doctor attributed it to ritualized superstition combined with some form of genetic memory.

In his brief stay, the Doctor had witnessed several of the Tharnadee villagers reach the end of their lives. The closer they were to their end, the brighter green they glowed. Until, with family and community gathered, they stood and literally breathed their last. A brightly glowing sphere of green light escaped, shone, and then dissipated above the expired body. No tears were shed by the onlookers who celebrated the deceased's union with the spirits.

He had inquired whether everyone on their world was so at peace with their short lives. They weren't cut off from the rest of the universe; there were other off-worlders visiting the same village the Doctor was in. Surely someone had wanted to leave or to try and extend their life in some way, to experience the worlds beyond their own.

They explained that the Tharnadee were not forbidden to leave their world. They were happy to serve where they could, acting as guides or trackers throughout their galaxy. They had the ability to smell out different species - smell was as close as the Doctor could come to understanding it.

Then he felt the weight of the Tharnadee's great sadness as they explained the Fallen, those who had tried to continue their worldly lives by consuming the lives of their neighbors. But whenever such a horrific act had been discovered, the community was able to bind the Fallen, psychically, until they met their natural end. Such deaths were, unsurprisingly, not as peaceful as those the Doctor had witnessed. The Fallen would fight against death, holding on to their body until it was utterly spent, releasing their consciousness only after they had lost all control over the flesh.

"We pray for the Fallen's repentance," they had said. But it was enough to the Doctor that they had the means to stop them.

The Doctor brought himself back to the present, thinking of the Family that were at that moment imprisoned on his ship. Repentance was the last thing he had had in mind for them. He hadn't been joking when he had suggested to Rose that he might grant them the immortality they had been seeking. He had wanted revenge for their even being alive at all. If he had been himself, rather than John Smith, when Rose had had a laser blaster pressed to her temple...

No second chances. But Rose had a way of defying his finality.

* * *

"I can't believe this is where they came from," Rose told the Doctor, as they looked back at the Tharnadee village before entering the TARDIS. "It's so beautiful, and peaceful, and... just not them."

She looked over at him, and was happily surprised to see his face so relaxed as he, too, surveyed the village. "Well," he said, "I wouldn't worry about a few bad apples spoiling this bunch." He gave her hand a squeeze, and then turned to face her. "Thank you," he said simply.

Rose shrugged. "What for?"

He looked at her for a long moment, but then seemed to shake himself. "For reminding me of this," he told her, gesturing at their surroundings with his free hand. "Of these brilliantly simple people who I almost forgot even existed."

She decided to play it off as if she had a clue as to what was really going on in his head. "Eh, no problem," she allowed, grinning back at him when his full smile appeared.

With one final look at Tharnadur, they turned and headed back into the TARDIS.

* * *

The Doctor felt like a new man as he and Rose piloted the TARDIS away from the planet. Much as had happened when he last visited Tharnadur, he now had a fresh outlook on his life and the lives of his human companions. Or, in this case, companion. It was so easy for him to forget to live while being caught up in the challenges of life. He had already shared how many Tharnadee life spans with Rose? Why should their time together be wasted, especially when no one knew how much more they had?

There was so much he wanted to do with her, to show her, to tell her. And in less than two weeks she would have his forever, for as long as it might last between them.

* * *

_The end._

_Tune in for the next installment, "03 10AU Blink"._


End file.
